Free Software Matters:
Our New Frontiers

August 25, 2000

The summer of 2000 has been another breakthrough period in the history of
free software. Several developments in the past few months, taken together,
show that even the explosive success of the Linux kernel for PCs and other
workstations is about to be eclipsed by much more far-reaching phenomena.

First, IBM's commitment to support for Linux and other free software bore
profound fruit at the beginning of the summer. IBM's Linux Technology Center
has completed the work to ``port,'' or adapt the Linux kernel for use on IBM's
S/390 series of mainframe computers. This means that Linux itself, and all
software that can run on a Linux PC, can also run on some of the most
impressive large computers IBM ever constructed. In the United States, IBM
has launched an aggressive advertising campaign, involving not just technical
publications but also full page advertisements in major daily newspapers, to
promote the use of Linux and other free software, along with IBM's proprietary
software, for employing S/390 computers as e-commerce servers. Even more
significant in some respects were the legal arrangements accompanying this
announcement. After negotiations I conducted on behalf of the Free Software
Foundation, IBM has assigned to the Foundation its copyrights in all of the
very substantial work done to make this kernel port.

From the technical point of view, IBM's S/390 port establishes the Linux
kernel as the dominant manufacturer's preferred approach to integrating
mainframe hardware into the Internet commerce market. From the legal
perspective, IBM's decision to have the Free Software Foundation act as
steward for its investments in free software demonstrates that one of the
world's most successful technology firms now understands that in the Internet
Era ownership of code is less important than the protection of open
standards.

While IBM has been further establishing free software at the high end of
the hardware market, a similar process has been going on at the other extreme
of the scale. Firms that specialize in ``embedded Linux'' are helping free
software capture an explosively-expanding position in the smallest computers.
An increasing number of information appliances, from palmtop computers to
personal MP3 players and new digital video recorders that replace VCRs,
incorporate versions of the Linux kernel and other free software as the
``platform'' on which specialized applications are constructed. Within the
next year or so a whole range of new wireless devices will be coming to
market, allowing web browsing, stock trading, auction tracking, and numerous
other functions, all based on a free software operating system running free or
proprietary applications. The recent unauthorized distribution of an early
version of AOL's new access software for wireless handheld devices was widely
reported, for example, proving that AOL-Time Warner too finds itself aboard
the Linux bandwagon.

Embedded Linux raises new problems for the legal structure of free software
distribution. The GNU General Public License, which sets the legal terms for
distribution of many critical free software programs--including the Linux
kernel--was designed with general purpose computers primarily in mind. The
requirement that source code be made available to users on a medium similar to
the medium employed for distribution of program object code, for example, is
not quite the same requirement when the object code is running from ROM chips
embedded in devices that are not meant to be programmed at all by their end
users.

This is not to say that the GPL doesn't apply to such situations, or that
its terms cannot be fully observed by embedders, just as they are observed by
those who sell or give away software distributions like Red Hat, Corel or
Debian GNU/Linux. Sellers of hardware with embedded free software have the
same obligations that any other distributor of free software has, and they
must abide by the rules. But purchasers of products containing free software
have sometimes been denied access to the source code of modifications made to
the embedded free software, or have even been denied access to unmodified
source, in violation of the GPL, when they have requested it from the
appliance's manufacturer. In our role as the steward for much of the world's
free software, through our ownership of the copyrights that allow us to
enforce the GPL, the Free Software Foundation has been devising measures to
address these problems in the embedded market. We hope to announce soon some
innovative approaches to the protection of free software licenses in this part
of the industry.

The spread of embedded Linux combined with the IBM S/390 port establishes
the free software operating system throughout the entire range of computers in
present use, from handheld appliances to mainframes. Developers who choose to
write software compatible with the Linux kernel and the wealth of other free
software, including the GNU tools and applications, can now reach the entire
span of users, no matter what computers they employ. The dream of ``write
once, run everywhere,'' which has been a goal of the software industry for
decades, is now being achieved thanks to free software. And as IBM has shown,
the world's most sophisticated corporations are recognizing that the only way
to achieve this objective is to abandon a legal structure of ``what's mine is
mine,'' for the idea that ``what's ours is everyone's.'' In this way a legal
revolution, which uses copyright law to secure freedom rather than ownership,
is bringing about a technical revolution that not even the Microsoft monopoly,
with all its power in the market, could ever achieve. As this revolution
consolidates its gains, and all the industries that comprise the Internet
society come to depend on the complete portability of software based on
standards and implementations that no one exclusively owns, it will become
fully clear just how deeply Free Software Matters.